


Can’t Love Me (feat. Tyler Blackburn) – Novi

by JupiterOrchid



Series: Crash Landing; Song-fic fix-it [3]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Kyle is a good friend, Light Angst, M/M, Sad Alex, Songfic, post-season 01 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23193214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JupiterOrchid/pseuds/JupiterOrchid
Summary: When Alex came home on that dusty day, he fell into bed with the thought that Michael didn’t want to try, that heneverwanted to but what he thought now was that Michael just couldn’t.This is part 3/6 in my fix-it song-fic series where I can't leave that finale well enough alone and have to make sense of what the fuck Michael is doing. This ain't your grandma's songfic but it still counts..?
Relationships: Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: Crash Landing; Song-fic fix-it [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665295
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	Can’t Love Me (feat. Tyler Blackburn) – Novi

**Author's Note:**

> Each part of the series can (probably?) be read as a stand-alone.
> 
> Though it is more fun in a group!
> 
> Also... *SPOILER ALERT(?)* 
> 
> I'm just completely ignoring Rosa's return and Max's maybe-death... Too complicated.

It would be a lie to say that Alex didn’t see it coming. Him and Michael always had shit timing and no timing was shittier than now. Alex just found out Michael was an alien and Michael just lost a mom who he didn’t even know he had, who was being held in a facility, only miles away from him, for Michael’s whole life and she was being held there by Alex’s monster of a father, no less. Even if Michael didn’t blame him – and Alex didn’t see why he wouldn’t (Alex sure as hell blamed himself) – Alex knew it was probably impossible for Michael to even look at him without being reminded of Jesse and Flint and the death of his mother and all the other painful moments of his life. So no, Alex wasn’t surprised things ended the way they did, before they even started. And he especially wasn’t surprised they ended the way they did after Michael confirmed a lot of Alex’s suspicions, suspicions he had time to think of and formalize while he waited for Michael to show.

What Alex didn’t see coming was how hard he was taking it, the effect it had on him, and the amount of pain Michael’s words caused him. He still couldn’t believe he said all these things back to Michael but what he was surprised to realize was that they were all true. These truths he couldn’t admit even to himself, that he never admitted to anyone else, that he couldn’t even talk about in his military-mandated therapy, spilled out of him like water through a colander. And now, now that he said it out loud, he couldn’t get rid of these thoughts, couldn’t bury them back into himself. They swirled about like milk stirred into the tea of his mind by the spoon of this truth he let slip out, making his head feel cloudy and heavy, fogged up. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t understand how he let all of this slip through his finger and onto the surface. He just didn’t seem to be able to hold it all in anymore, the surface cracking when Michael seemed to give up on them, on him, so easily, just when Alex found the power within him to fight for them, to hold on.

Alex came home that day and almost tore his clothes off himself. Dusty and smeared with the grime of dessert, sweat, and time, they felt restrictive and offensive now: a sign of his earlier hope, a reminder of all the pain Alex caused Michael just by existing, just by stepping into his path as a silly teenager. He took off his prosthetic and changed into old soft sweatpants and a huge Airforce sweater and stayed in bed for two days straight. He didn’t mean to do it but his blinds were drawn and his room was dark and he had no energy to get up and no appetite to eat so he stayed in bed and stewed in his own pain and dreamt of the dessert in his eyes and of blood in his mouth.

And then someone knocked on his door and despite himself he let hope slip into his heart, like a teenager, a child who believes in fairy tales, who believes that good things can just… happen. But when he hobbled to the door and looked through the blinds, it wasn’t Michael on his porch, and he fell back into reality like a stone into a well, plopping into the water with a hollow sound no one else heard. He thought of just going back to bed and pretending he wasn’t home, but his car was in the driveway and he knew Maria wouldn’t just leave. He also didn’t want her to think there was a problem. There wasn’t, not really. Michael made a choice and that choice wasn’t him and Maria wasn’t at fault here. No one was. There was no one to blame. Life was just like that, going along how it did, with no rhyme or reason and no one to blame so he opened the door and shuffled onto the porch and sat on the bench and talked to her, letting her know that everything was fine. And maybe it wasn’t, but it wasn’t anything her or Michael needed to worry about.

After all, everything he told Michael was true, yes but he had time to think about everything in those two days he spent in bed and what he realized was that there was his version and then there was reality and reality was made up of different perspectives and individual experiences sawn together into a multidimensional whole. He had a lot of time to think about the piece that was Michael’s perspective and experience and how it fit with his own. Michael was brilliant. Truly. A man who could do anything. A man who could rebuild a ship from scraps; who could shut cameras off with his mind; who could figure out how to save his dying sister, stage a scene, find out the truth, fight for what he believed in. All he needed to do was to strive for it. He could create anything, build anything, do anything but only within the parameters of his own will. And maybe… just maybe… after everything… he couldn’t commit to Alex, couldn’t chose Alex, not because he didn’t want to, but because his resolve was broken to the point where his mind couldn’t be made up about this. When Alex came home on that dusty day, he fell into bed with the thought that Michael didn’t want to try, that he _never_ wanted to but what he thought now was that Michael just couldn’t. He couldn’t love Alex, couldn’t let himself love Alex, not for real, with all that real-life love, with real-life commitment and time – not just the idea of love – entailed. He couldn’t do it now and he couldn’t do it back then, either. They were just fooling themselves. This love… it was always too hard, always impossible, and that wasn’t Michael’s fault. That was just life.

And Alex could promise him anything, could try to keep him safe, could show him he would never betray him, that he could build a home for him, could try to quiet Michael’s mind for him, but none of it mattered. It was too late for them. It was always too late for them. They were broken way before they met. At least that’s what Alex thought. After days of thinking, that’s the conclusion he came to and this wasn’t something he or Michael or anyone could fix. The only thing left to do was to try and move on.

At first, Alex wasn’t doing so well, wasn’t sure where to start. The few memories he had of him and Michael together and happy stuck in his mind like gum or glue. He couldn’t stop playing them in his mind every time he thought of the last time he saw Michael. In those first few months he lost more weight than during his recovery after he lost his leg. Every time he saw Michael or Maria in town set him a step back, two steps if he saw them together, but he couldn’t pretend not to see them. He wanted them to be happy, wanted to show them that he understood and that he didn’t hold it against them, even if it meant that he would go home that day and fall into his bed for the rest of it. It didn’t get any easier. Some days Alex thought in never would. He would drink beer with Kyle, would occasionally see Liz, and wait for his leave to slowly come to an end.

He had the option of leaving the army. Honourable discharge, medal, pension, the whole nine yards but when, at the end of his leave, the Holloman posting came across his desk he didn’t think twice. He put his head in his hands and sighed, feeling some of the weight shift off his shoulders.

He wanted to tell them, wanted to tell Liz and Maria, wanted Michael to know that this wasn’t Alex running away. Even though it could seem that way, it really wasn’t. This was Alex trying to move on or trying to give himself some space. He wanted to make that clear. This wasn’t Iraq or Syria, this wasn’t even Europe. Holloman was only a couple hours away. He’d be back. Maybe even for Christmas or Fourth of July or something…

He wanted to make them understand that there was nothing holding Alex in Roswell right now, nothing concrete or stable and Holloman… That could be stable, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t one day, maybe, when he didn’t feel the loss so sharply, come back and be a real friend to them all. He didn’t want to forget them. He wanted to become better for them.

But to do that, convey that, he needed to bring it up nonchalantly, just a “hey, by the way, I’m being posted two hundred miles away, it’s no big deal, I’ll visit y’all on Christmas”.

He told Kyle, just like that. Almost like that. Just a simple: “I’m being posted” between sips of beer. And Kyle looked at him and said: “active duty?” pointedly like he disapproved.

“I’m being assigned an operations group in Holloman. If things go well, maybe I’ll try for major.”

“Hmm,” Kyle said in response like that was that.

“I’ll come visit on Christmas,” Alex added.

“Hmm,” Kyle made the same noise.

“It’s only a couple hours away,” Alex wished he could stop talking.

“Will you be telling the others?” Kyle asked instead.

“Yeah, of course,” Alex said like he meant it.

And he did mean it. But the opportunity for that casual “hey, I’ll be home on Christmas!” never presented itself. The days ticked by and before Alex knew it, the cross marks on his calendar only left a week for him in Roswell. He spent the week packing and getting the cabin ready to be locked up. The morning of the day he was leaving, he stopped by Kyle’s and gave him his spare key, just in case.

“You never told them, did you?” Kyle said, putting the key onto his own keyring.

“I’ll call Liz from Holloman,” Alex said like it was no big deal.

“You know she’ll hate that,” Kyle mused, casually, putting the keys back into his pocket.

“I know,” Alex nodded.

“What about the others?” Kyle looked at him intently.

“Liz will tell the others,” Alex said, body turned like he was ready to leave and then added: “it’s only a couple hours away” like that absolved him of everything.

“I’ll miss you,” Kyle said, pulling him into a hug.

“It’s only a couple hours away,” Alex repeated into Kyle’s embrace. They left it at that, and Alex turned to leave. It’s not like this was goodbye. Alex wasn’t running away. He was a soldier and his country needed him to go to Holloman and he needed to go... away, just for a bit, just to get some space, to move on. That was that.

**Author's Note:**

> Real Talk: this is probably my favorite part of the series. Since Alex is a computer wiz (to say the least), I figured he probably has a very rational, critical-thinking approach to solving problems. I'm in law and have a similarly set mind. Decisions, actions, thoughts, they all have to be based on something; there has to be reason in them. I need to be able to explain my decisions and justify them based on real, objective truths. Which sometimes means psychoanalyzing your ex a little..? So I injected some of that into Alex's thought process. He's hurt but he's rational and if he over-corrects a little too far with his assumptions and justifications... Well... Can you blame him?
> 
> I think maybe because it's so personal, has a little bit of me in it... that's probably why it's my favorite. It really made me love Alex and relate to him as this wonderful person who loves his friends despite everything and is just trying to work through the hurt the best way he can think of.


End file.
